Ladybugs lay fewer eggs and live half as long on GE plants

SCIENTISTS in Scotland have urged caution in the introduction of
genetically modified crops after discovering that they could harm ladybugs
(called ladybirds in Europe).

Nick Birch and a team from the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee
found that female ladybugs that ate aphids that had fed on genetically
modified potatoes laid fewer eggs and lived only half as long as the
average. The team tested a potato plant that had been modified to produce a
natural insecticide that discouraged aphids from feeding on them.

The team found that the modified potatoes did indeed suffer reduced attack
but the cut, of 50 per cent, was insufficient on its own, so it was
important that ladybugs also did their work.

The team says in the institute's annual report that the ladybirds continued
to eat the aphids but the effects suggested that such crops could have
unexpected consequences.

==================

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving this information for research and educational purposes. **

Ladybug, Quickly Fly Away Home!

HALF MOON BAY, California, October 24, 1997 -- Some ladybugs in
Scotland have become very important this week because they may be
the first proof that non-target species can be harmed by transgenic
crops. Transgenic bio-engineering involves inserting genes into
one species from another in order to gain some advantage.

Ladybugs -- or "ladybirds" if you are European -- have always been
considered friendly insects in the garden and on the farm. They
eat many insects that are harmful to crops and flowers. Ladybugs
are part of the natural system.

The lifespan of ladybugs was reduced to half when they ate aphids
that had fed on genetically altered potatoes in Scotland, according
to a London Times article (10/22/97) by Science Editor, Nigel
Hawkes. The ladybugs also laid fewer eggs.

Fears of genetic engineering critics were fanned by the news that
ladybugs were damaged by eating insects feeding on altered
potatoes.

Among the critics' concerns are: that non-target organisms may be
affected by pesticide genes put into plants; that beneficial
insects might be harmed; that unknown consequences may occur; and
that ecosystems may be damaged.

Richard Wolfson, Ph.D., of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, says that
genetically engineered potatoes and corn produce their own
pesticide. These vegetables, now on the market, contain a
bacterial gene normally found in soil, called "bacillus
thuringiensis," or Bt. In altered potatoes and corn, Bt creates a
toxin in the plant itself to kill insects.

Agronomists are concerned that by making Bt an integral part of
plants, the evolution of Bt resistant insects will speed up
enormously. When used alone, as it occurs in nature, Bt is
considered among the safest insect controllers.

The effects on humans of eating altered crops which contain Bt is
unknown. The companies which have pioneered in inserting foreign
genes into plants have successfully made the claim to regulatory
agencies that the food plants are substantially equivalent to
unaltered ones. The companies have been able to fast track their
products to market, bypassing lengthy safety testing.

Scientists in Scotland now urge caution in the introduction of
genetically modified crops after discovering that they could harm
ladybugs. Nick Birch and a team from the Scottish Crop Research
Institute in Dundee are responsible for discovering the reduced
fertility and lifespan of the ladybugs.

The potato plant in question had been altered to produce a natural
insecticide that deterred aphids from eating them. Non-potato
genetic material is inserted into potatoes. While this did indeed
discourage aphids, the reduction was not complete. The number of
aphids on the potatoes was reduced by only 50% so that ladybugs
were needed to eat the remaining aphids.

With the large number of transgentic crops being planted in the
U.S. and the rest of the world, many unforseen consequences may be
released. In the annual report of the Institute, the team that
worked on the ladybug research said the deleterious effects on the
ladybugs suggested that genetically altered crops could have
unexpected consequences.

Doctors test 'human gene' pigs on patients

DOCTORS are using genetically engineered animal organs to keep humans
alive. Twenty people are to be connected to pig livers despite fears that
they could be infected by unpredictable animal viruses.

The experiments are being conducted by three American hospitals that are
competing to perfect the introduction of human genes into pigs so that
their hearts, kidneys and livers can be used in humans.

Surgeons involved in the research disclosed last week that the first
operations have taken place. All patients suffer from liver failure that
would otherwise have been fatal and most have lapsed into a final coma.
Relatives had to give consent.

In each case, a tube is attached to a vein in the patient's leg. The blood
is artificially oxygenated, pumped through the pig liver and back into the
body through a neck vein. The freshly removed pig liver is stored in a
plastic container beside the patient and remains functioning because of the
regular supply of human blood.

The livers come from herds which have been bred to contain two human genes
which prevent the organs being recognised as foreign tissue.

A key indicator of whether a pig liver is working will be its ability to
manufacture bile. Humans need up to two pints a day of this vital liver
product to keep the digestive system functioning. The livers will also have
to manufacture new blood cells.

"The project is principally a way of our helping to keep these people
alive, but it also gives us more information about the rejection process,"
said Jeffrey Platt, professor of experimental surgery at Duke University in
North Carolina, who is leading one of the groups conducting the research.

Platt was partly prompted to experiment with transgenic pig organs after
surgeons at the university successfully used normal pig livers to save Eric
Thomas, a 22-year-old student. In his case, doctors used five successive
pig livers in an experiment to filter his blood. Each was rejected within
hours, but they provided sufficient time for a human organ to be found.

In Britain, at least 6,000 people are waiting for organ transplants.
Thousands die while on the waiting list, but British doctors have resisted
pressure to conduct human experiments with genetically engineered animal
organs. There are fears that viruses in animal organs could jump the
species barrier and infect patients.

Last week British scientists announced in Nature, the scientific journal,
that they had found two pig viruses capable of infecting human cells.

"We are taking a cautious approach and trying to answer as many questions
as we can about safety before we move on to man," said Corinne Savill,
chief executive of Imutran, a Cambridge-based company trying to develop
safe transgenic organs. Imutran is confident it will eventually be able to
breed virus-free pigs.

Safety is not the only ethical dilemma facing scientists. "Obviously the
liver technique is a potential life-saving therapy," said Savill. "But
there is a question of whether the patients can give informed consent when
they are unconscious and don't know what the procedure is, or its potential
risks and benefits."

Claire Corps, 29, from Ripon, North Yorkshire, was an immunologist
researching liver failure when she discovered she had the condition herself.

She has already been waiting eight months for a transplant organ. "I would
say not enough is known about pig livers. Things are getting worse for me
and the liver is gradually going down," she said. "If I were nearer the
end, I might think differently."

==================

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving this information for research and educational purposes. **

Here are two articles from
GE - Biotechnology News 10/26
put out by Reclaim The Streets

Ireland: Mainstream food 'culture' criticised -

The Irish Times October 28, 1997

The mainstream food culture is morally bankrupt and unconcerned with the
health of its customers, according to a leading food writer, Mr John
McKenna.

At the annual meeting of the Association of Health Stores in Limerick
yesterday, Mr McKenna said the introduction of genetically modified
organisms ( GMOs) represented a departure from a holistic and humane
approach to food.

GMOs are microbes, plants or animals in which genetic material has been
altered in a way that does not occur naturally through mating or natural
recombination.

Mr McKenna said that the use of GMOs represented the "most extreme
example" of adulteration in the food production process, a process which it
was the role of the Government to police. Last week a conference in Dublin
on the regulation of GMOs heard that EU directives were currently being
strengthened to improve risk assessment and a better labelling of foods
containing GMOs.

Mr McKenna also accused supermarkets of being unconcerned about the sources
of their food or how it got onto their shelves and said that mulinational
producers were more concerned about profit than issues of public concern,
such as the treatment of food with artificial preservatives and the impact
of extensive farming practices on the environment.

Biotech babes down to earth

ALONG with football clubs, biotechnology stocks share the award for the
worst investments of the year. Wild enthusiasm has given way to deep
scepticism and, to hammer the point home, British Biotech, the biggest
of the biotech babes, sank to a 12-month low yesterday. It has now fallen
from 326p to 113 1/2 p in a little over 15 months.

For investors, the question is whether optimism could return as quickly,
offering a chance to pick up some bargains. Do not believe it. The big four
- British Biotech, Biocompatibles, Celltech and Scotia Holdings - have all
made disappointing announcements this year, which looks nothing more than
the arrival of reality.

The fact of life in drug development is that only about 20pc of the
compounds that enter clinical trials make it to the market. The proportion
rises as the drugs progress through the labs but the risk of outright
failure (as with Celltech's septic shock drug) remains. At some point, the
potential rewards will mean that the risk is worth taking. But British
Biotech, for example, is still worth pounds 750m. The only thing that
would move its share price in the short-term would be positive results from
the final stage of clinical trials on marimastat - but that is over a year
away.

In the background is another worry. Biotech stocks usually underperform
at the end of the year as big investors try to lock in any profits from
these high-risk stocks. The profits are obviously scarcer this year but
there may well be venture capitalists, who were there in the early days,
still looking to sell their rump holdings. The sector should still be
avoided.

Here are two articles from New Scientist, 1 November 1997
thanks to Ron Epstein, and distributed through
gentech@ping.de

Environmental threat: Call For a Spin Doctor

By Matthew Gledhill and Peter McGrath

The public image of genetically engineered crops--which are already viewed
with deep suspicion in many European countries--may be about to get worse.

Agricultural botanists in France have now shown that genes for herbicide
resistance engineered into oilseed rape can persist for several generations
in hybrids between the transgenic rape and wild radishes. Meanwhile,
British researchers have found that potatoes engineered to resist attack by
aphids can also harm ladybirds, the pests' natural predators.

While experts stress that neither finding poses a major environmental
threat, industry sources fear that the new results will further undermine
public acceptance of genetically engineered crops.

The escape of genes into wild plants has always been the main worry
surrounding transgenic crops. To study this, Anne-Marie ChŠvre and her
colleagues at INRA, France's national agricultural research agency, based
near Rennes, planted plots of wild radish, Raphanus raphanistrum, next to
transgenic oilseed rape, Brassica napus. The rape was engineered to carry a
gene for resistance to the herbicide glufosinate ammonium and did not
produce pollen.

The researchers had found previously that the rape produced hybrids
carrying 28 chromosomes, 19 from the rape, 9 from the radish. In this
week's Nature (vol 389, p 924), they describe experiments in which the
hybrids were planted surrounded by wild radishes, and followed through four
generations.

Subsequent generations of the hybrids had variable numbers of
chromosomes--anywhere between 20 and 60. "We never found a stable variety,"
says Frédèrique Eber, the team's chromosome specialist. Even in the fourth
generation, however, 20 per cent of the hybrids retained the gene for
herbicide resistance.

Although the results suggest that the gene might be lost eventually,
botanists note that the hybrids studied by the French team are more
persistent than many crosses between different species, which frequently
don't survive beyond the first generation. "Often things will die out at
that stage," says Philip Dale of the John Innes Centre in Norwich.

John Beringer of the University of Bristol, who chairs Britain's Advisory
Committee on Releases to the Environment, believes that there is no cause
for public alarm. But hybrid weeds could remain in fields and sprout
despite herbicide spraying. "It is more of a problem for farmers than an
environmental problem."

There is already a climate of public opposition in Europe to imports of
American soya beans and maize engineered to produce the bacterial
insecticide Bt. Industry sources fear the French findings could delay
approval for transgenic crops currently awaiting the green light in Europe,
which include five separate strains of herbicide-resistant oilseed rape.
"We've had a whole spate of bad news recently," says David Bennett of the
European Federation of Biotechnology, based in The Hague. "I can only
assume the European Commission will react badly."

More bad news for plant biotechnologists comes from Nick Birch of the
Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee and Mike Majerus of the
University of Cambridge. They fed two-spot ladybirds, Adalia bipunctata,
for two weeks on peach-potato aphids, Myzus persicae, that had fed on sap
from potatoes engineered to carry a lectin from snowdrops--a protein that
interferes with insect digestion.

The engineered potatoes were made by John and Angharad Gatehouse of the
University of Durham, and in greenhouse tests they killed off significant
numbers of the aphid pests. But in experiments to be reported in a future
issue of Molecular Breeding, Birch and Majerus found that female ladybirds
fed with aphids from the engineered potatoes lived half as long as those
fed on aphids from normal potatoes. Males given lectin-containing aphids
lived for an average of 46 days, 5 days less than those in the control
group.

In mating studies, up to 30 per cent fewer viable eggs were laid when one
of the parent ladybirds was fed aphids from lectin-transformed potatoes.
"But these effects on ladybird reproduction wear off after three to four
weeks," says Birch.

This is the first time that such a knock-on effect on a beneficial predator
species has been seen. While it adds to the concerns about the safety of
transgenic crops, Birch notes that the engineered potatoes should require
less insecticides. "It may become a question of balancing the risks of
transgenic plants with the risks of chemical applications," he says.

Monsanto's cotton gets the Mississippi blues

By Kurt Kleiner, Washington DC

farmers in mississippi could lose millions of dollars following the partial
failure of a new genetically engineered cotton crop.

The cotton, produced by Monsanto, contains a gene for resistance to the
company's herbicide glyphosate, sold as Roundup. It should simplify weed
control by allowing farmers to apply the herbicide directly to their fields
without harming the cotton.

Some 320 000 hectares across the US were planted with the cotton this
season, its first on the market. Most farmers are happy with the results.
But in Mississippi, and to some extent in Arkansas, Tennessee and
Louisiana, entire fields have shed their bolls--the fluffy part harvested
for fibre--or have developed small, malformed bolls.

Robert McCarty, director of Mississippi's Bureau of Plant Industry in
Starkville, says that only Monsanto plants seem to have failed, over an
area totalling 12 000 hectares. "Cotton right across the road of a
different variety was not affected," he says.

Monsanto maintains that only a few thousand hectares are involved, and
argues that malformed bolls have also been seen with other varieties. But
Lisa Drake, a spokeswoman at Monsanto's headquarters in St Louis, Missouri,
accepts that plants that have dropped bolls look similar to those damaged
in tests involving very large doses of herbicide. She speculates that an
abnormally cold, wet spring in Mississippi stressed some plants and reduced
their herbicide tolerance.

The first full length documentary on British television covering the
genetically engineered (GE) foods issue is to be aired by BBC2 Bristol on
13th November 1997 at 7.30pm as part of their "Close Up West" series. The
programme will be entitled "Frankinstein's Food". Those living in the BBC
South (Gloucester, Wiltshire, Devon, Somerset...) area please look in and
record the programme

U.S. To Hold Bioengineering Seminars In Japan October 30, 1997

Nikkei English News via Individual Inc. : TOKYO (Nikkei)--The U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration will send a
delegation to Japan to assuage concerns about bioengineered agricultural
products by holding seminars in Tokyo, Sapporo and Fukuoka in December.

The move follows rising concerns about the safety of such food and calls
for clear labelling. Some in Japan and Europe want to ban imports. U.S.
acreage devoted to such products is expanding yearly, and it is a major
exporter.

==============

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving this information for research and educational purposes. **

Myth #1 Biotechnology will benefit US farmers

Biotechnology seeks to "industrialize agriculture" even further, converting
agriculture into a branch of industry

Biotechnology is capital intensive and increases concentration of
agriculture production in the hands of large - corporate farms

As with other labor saving technology, by increasing productivity
biotechnology tends to reduce commodity prices and set in motion a
technology treadmill that forces out of business a significant number of
farmers, especially small scale.

Given that time and labor saving technology have been substituted for
farmers and farm workers for over 200 years, the most probable outcome is
that US farmers will be displaced by biotechnology.

Removal of constraints to growing the same crop in the same field every
year and eliminating need for mechanical weed control will enable a given
number of people to farm more acres and thereby facilitate a system of
bigger and fewer farms.

Biotechnology will further concentrate power in the hands of few MNCs,
which in turn will enhance farmers dependence and force them to pay
inflated prices for seed-chemical packages

Myth #2 Biotechnology will benefit Third World farmers

But the Reality is ...

If green revolution technology bypassed small and resource-poor farmers,
biotechnology will exacerbate marginalization even more as such
technologies are under corporate control and protected by patents, are
expensive and inappropriate to the needs and circumstance of indigenous
people.

Biotechnology products will undermine exports from Third World countries
especially from small-scale producers.

70,000 farmers in Madagascar growing vanilla were ruined when a Texas farm
produced vanilla in biotech labs.

Fructose produced by biotechnology captured over 10% of the world sugar
market and caused sugar price to fall, throwing tens of thousands of sugar
workers in the Third World out of work

Nearly 10 million sugar farmers in the Third World may face a loss of
livelihood as laboratory-produced sweeteners begin invading world markets.

Expansion of Unilever cloned oil palms will substantially increase palm-oil
production with dramatic consequences for farmers producing other vegetable
oils (groundnut in Senegal and coconut in Philippines)

The Third World should worry that the massive penetration of transgenic
crops will not only pose environmental risks and foreclose rural employment
opportunities, but will doom traditional agriculture and its native genetic
diversity.

Myth #3 Biotechnology production promises will be a blessing for the poor
and hungry of the Third World.

But the Reality is ...

Biotechnology is profit driven rather than science and need driven.

Biotechnology research serves the desires of the rich rather than the needs
of humanity, especially the poor

Biotechnology is primarily a commercial activity, a reality that determines
priorities of what is investigated, how it is applied and who is to
benefit. While the world may lack food and suffer pesticide pollution, the
focus of MCNs is profit, not philanthropy.

Investors design GMOs for new marketable quality or for import
substitution, rather then for greater food production.

Biotechnology companies are emphasizing a limited range of crops for which
there are large and secure markets, targeted to relatively
capital-intensive production systems. It is difficult to conceive how such
technology will be introduced in Third World countries to favor masses of
poor farmers

The thrust of the biotech industry is not to solve agricultural problems
as much as it to create profitability, Why HRCs are not being develop for
parasitic weeds (Striga) in Africa? instead HRC corn and cotton is being
produced although there is myriad herbicides available to control weeds in
these crops.

Why isn't the scientific genius of biotechnology turned to develop
varieties of crops more tolerant to weeds rather than herbicides? or why
aren't more promising products of biotechnology, such as N fixing and
tolerant plants being developed?

Myth #4 Biotechnology will not attempt against the ecological sovereignty of the Third World.

But the Reality is ...

The Third World is now witnessing a "gene rush" as governments and
multinational corporation aggressively scour forests, crop fields and
coasts in search of the new genetic gold

Indigenous people and their biodiversity are viewed as raw material for the
MCNs

Corporations have made billions of dollars on seeds developed in US labs
from germplasm that farmers in the Third World had carefully bred over
generations.

Peasant farmers go unrewarded for their millenary knowledge of what to
grow, while MNCs stand to harvest royalties from Third World countries
estimated at billions of dollars

Patenting laws prevent farmers from freely reproducing patented livestock
and seeds. Biotech companies offer no concrete provisions to pay Third
World farmers for the seeds they take and use

Patenting of plants and animals means that farmers must pay royalties to
the patent holder each time they breed their stock (saving seed is not
possible with hybrid crops, farmers must buy fresh patented seed each year)

Indigenous farmers can lose rights to their own original seeds and not be
allowed under GATT to market or use them.

As bans and regulations delay tests and marketing in the North, GMOs will
increasingly be tested in the South to bypass public control (Vaccine
application program in India). The Third World will evolve from chemical
and nuclear waste disposal to genetic dump site.

Myth # 5 Biotechnology will lead to Biodiversity Conservation

But the Reality is ...

Although biotechnology has the capacity to create a greater variety of
commercial plants and thus contribute to biodiversity, this is unlikely to
happen. MNCs strategy is to create broad international markets for a single
product. The tendency is towards uniform international seed markets.

The agricultural systems developed with transgenic crops will favor
monocultures characterized by dangerously high levels of genetic
homogeneity leading to higher vulnerability of agriculture to biotic and
abiotic stresses.

As the new bioengineered seeds replace the old traditional varieties and
their wild relatives, genetic erosion will accelerate in the Third World.

The push for uniformity will not only destroy the diversity of genetic
resources, but will also disrupt the biological complexity that underlies
the sustainability of traditional farming systems.

Myth # 6 Biotechnology is ecologically safe, offering softer technologies and will launch a period of chemical-free agriculture

But the Reality is ...

We can be sure of the economic outcomes of biotechnology (especially for
MNCs) than we can about its health or environmental comes.

There are many unanswered ecological questions regarding the impact of the
release of transgenic plants and microbes into the environment. Approaches
must be developed and employed for assessing and monitoring future
predictable risks.

Biotechnology will exacerbate the problems of conventional agriculture and
will also undermine ecological methods of farming such as rotation and
polycultures.

Transgenic crops are likely to increase the use of pesticides and to
accelerate the evolution of "superweeds" and resistant insect pest strains.

Major environmental risks associated with genetically engineered plants are
the unintended transfer to plant relatives of the "trangenes" and the
unpredictable ecological effects

Myth #7 Biotechnology will enhance the use of molecular biology for the benefit of all society

But the Reality is ...

The demand for the new biotechnology has emerged out of the change in plant
laws and the profit interests of chemical companies of linking seeds and
pesticides. The supply emerged out of breakthroughs in molecular biology
and the availability of venture capital as a result of favorable tax laws

Plant breeding research is shifting form the public to the private sector.
As more universities enter into partnerships with corporations, serious
ethical questions emerge about who owns the results of research and which
research gets done.

A great deal of the basic knowledge underlying biotechnology was developed
using public funding.

The trend to secrecy by public funded scientists in government and
universities is not in the public interest.

A professor ability to attract private investments is often more important
than academic qualifications. Applied and alternative agricultural
sciences such as biological pest control which do not attract corporate
sponsorship are being phased out.

The economic and political domination of the agricultural development
agenda has thrived at the expense of interest of consumers, farm workers,
small family farms, wildlife and the environment

Citizens should have earlier entry points and broader participation in
technological decisions

The domination of scientific research by corporate interest must be dealt
with more stringent public control.

It is not biotechnological science that needs scrutiny, it is its
exploitation by narrow business interests.

CGIAR will have to carefully monitor and control the provision of applied
non proprietary knowledge to the private sector so as to protect that such
knowledge will continue in the public domain for the benefit of the rural
poor.

Mechanisms should be in place to reverse the privatization of biotechnology
and challenge the direction of current privately led research. The CGIAR
could assume the historic and ethical responsibility in the development and
deployment of socioeconomically and environmentally desirable
biotechnologies.

Myth #8 Biotechnology is a more environmentally sound approach to pest management and sustainable agriculture.

But the Reality is ...

Biotechnology emerges in an area when there is widespread concern about the
long-term sustainability of our food production systems. Many scientists
raise questions about the growing dependence of farming on non -renewable
resources, the depletion of soils through erosion and the heavy reliance on
chemicals which are costly but also raise questions about food and
environmental quality.

Agroindustrial's model reliance on monoculture and inputs such as
pesticides and fertilizers impacts the environment and society: topsoil has
been lost, biodiversity has eroded, and toxics have damaged wildlife, soil
and water. As biotechnology requires reliance on monocultures these
negative trends will become exacerbated.

Worldwide, 2.5 million tons of pesticides are applied each year with a
purchase price of $20 billion.

In the US, 500,000 tons of 600 different types of pesticides are used
annually at a cost of $4.1 billion.

The cost to Latin America of chemical pest control is expected to reach US
$ 3.97 billion by the year 2000

An investment of $4 billion dollars in pesticide control saves
approximately $16 billions in US crops. But indirect environmental and
public health costs of pesticide use (reaching $8 billion each year) need
to be balanced against these benefits.

By weight of active ingredients, herbicides now constitute 85% of all
pesticides applied to field crops. Monsanto alone sold $1 billion worth in
1982.

Biotechnology treats agricultural problems as genetic deficiencies of
organisms, and treats nature as a commodity.

Biotechnology is being used to pursue to patch up problems that have been
caused by previous technologies (pest resistance, cost of pesticides,
pollution, etc.) which were promoted by the same companies now leading the
bio-revolution

Transgenic crops for pest control follow closely the pesticide paradigm of
using a single control mechanism which has proven to fail with insects,
pathogens and weeds. As such, they do not fit into the broad ideals of
sustainable agriculture.

The "one gene - one pest" resistance approach is rather easy to be
overcome by pests which are continuously adapting to new situations and
evolving detoxification mechanisms.

As with pesticides, biotechnology companies will feel the impact of
environmental, farm labor, animal rights and consumers lobbies